We often ask the interviewee about his
or her mentors in their formative years. Rev. Ed Helm was my pastor,
and a major positive factor in my own young life. If they made a movie
about Ed Helm it would be called The Encourager. Ed was a
member of an elite Navy group in World War II called the Armed Guard.
It wasn't until our interviews with Glen Franklin and Fred Peeples that I
began to fully understand the full impact of this service. The Armed
Guard were regular Navy gunners who were assigned to Merchant Marine
ships. They were on their own, with ships that were slow and heavily
loaded with volatile cargos, against a determined enemy. The Armed
Guard had the highest causality rate of any Navy group in World War II.

Ed Helm also served on board a unique
Navy ship, the U.S.S. Virgo. To fully appreciate the story of the
Virgo, one needs to go to Max Huber's excellent, award winning site on the
ship that was the true life ship of Mr. Roberts fame www.uss-virgo.com.